The New Motorola Phones at CES

Although cell phones – excuse me mobile devices – are not my beat, by virtue of the fact that I work with the company, I did get a heads-up on Motorola’s new handsets before the press conference tonight. Two important introductions are the new ROKR E8 and the new Motorola Z10.

The ROKR adds an interesting interface twist. With the press of a button you can switch the touch-screen menu from displaying phone options to displaying music player options. I haven’t quite gotten into the touch-screen thing yet, but I do like the idea of toggling easily between menus rather than having to drill down for the features I want. Also, the ROKR includes Haptics technology (vibration when you touch a button on the screen), which does give touch-screens a nice feel. (I tested Haptics out on another Motorola phone last year.) The Motorola tag line: “It’s about touch and response.”

The Motorola Z10 is much like the Z8 except that it adds on-board editing features from ArcSoft. Sweet. I love video on the go, but my raw footage is often a bit twitchy. I like the idea of being able to tweak without uploading to a computer first. Of course I can’t imagine doing any major editing on a phone (though apparently you can take up to 24 hours of video and upload directly to YouTube), but minor stuff I can imagine working quite well. The Motorola tag line (I’m paraphrasing now): “You’re not just a cameraman; you’re a producer.”

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